WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – is blasting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for giving another gift to Wall Street megabanks by voting to rollback the Volcker Rule. Instead of guarding the taxpayer backstop that protects Americans’ savings, the banking regulators are undoing critical protections put in place after the financial crisis to guard against Wall Street gambling.

“As the threats from leveraged lending and global uncertainty increase, greedy Wall Street banks and Trump regulators are determined to put the financial system and working families in danger,” said Brown. “Trump regulators continue to open a Pandora’s box of risky trading and speculation at the expense of American taxpayers”

Going in to effect in 2015, the Volcker Rule prohibits banks or financial institutions that own a bank from engaging in proprietary trading and prohibits banks from investing in hedge funds and private equity funds. In March, Sen. Brown slammed the Trump regulator’s decision to consider a rewrite of the Volcker Rule.